Violent days in Stockton

Tuesday

Oct 23, 2012 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - An apparent murder-suicide Monday that left four dead and partly played out in an upscale retirement home capped three days of violence in Stockton, surpassing the city's all-time homicide record set last year.

Zachary K. Johnson and Scott Smith

STOCKTON - An apparent murder-suicide Monday that left four dead and partly played out in an upscale retirement home capped three days of violence in Stockton, surpassing the city's all-time homicide record set last year.

In all, nine people died violent deaths in a span of 51 hours beginning Saturday, bringing Stockton to a grim record of 59 homicides. There were 58 in all of 2011.

The string of killings began with the brazen lunchtime shooting of a man outside a fast-food restaurant Saturday. Two other fatal shootings followed late Saturday and early Sunday. Add that to Monday's violence, and police were investigating eight new homicides.

"I've never seen this many homicides in such a short time span," said Officer Joe Silva, a spokesman for the Stockton Police Department. "Our detectives have worked around the clock since Saturday."

Investigators believe the murder-suicide began at 3:06 p.m. in the 400 block of North Regent Street, a few blocks from University of the Pacific, where officers found a 64-year-old women shot dead in her home.

Witnesses saw a white man leave in a silver minivan, which officers spotted minutes later parked at O'Connor Woods Senior Living, an upscale retirement home six miles north in the 3500 block of Wagner Heights Road.

Inside a room, officers found two people dead from gunshot injuries - an 88-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man, who is the suspected gunman.

Officers found a woman wrapped in a blue tarp in the back of the minivan. Firefighters tried to resuscitate her for several minutes with chest compressions before finally covering her with a yellow tarp and stepping back.

Police Chief Eric Jones arrived at the retirement home and joined a swarm of homicide detectives and uniformed officers behind the yellow crime scene tape.

Police brought in the department's large mobile command center, preparing to work the scene through the night. Worried relatives asked through the fence if their loved ones were OK, and employees had trouble getting inside.

Ron Cutler, who lives across the street, said he was in disbelief. His grandfather had lived at O'Connor Woods, a heavily wooded complex of elderly homes for residents with varying degrees of independence.

"I get the shakes when I see this kind of stuff in Stockton," Cutler said. "This is not what this town is about."

North Regent Street, where the first victim was found, is a tree-lined street right off Pacific Avenue, where residents say they know each other well, have a strong Neighborhood Watch program and enjoy walking to the nearby Miracle Mile.

Neighbors said the house where the woman was found was the home of a woman they knew as Cathy, who lived there on her own.

It was the time of year the woman typically baked intricately decorated Halloween cookies she would bring to neighbors.

"The kids always looked forward to her little treats," said Gloria Yamada, one of the handful of neighbors gathered at the crime scene tape stretched across their street. They were shaken by the violence in their neighborhood.

"This is pretty close to home," Yamada said. "I feel like I want to get out of Dodge."

Investigators were piecing together the relationships among the people involved in the killing Monday and had not released the names of the three victims or the suspected gunman.

Monday's violence began at 12:46 a.m. with a double homicide that was apparently unrelated to the afternoon bloodshed.

It occurred at an apartment complex in the 300 block of Burkett Avenue in south Stockton. Two shooting victims were pronounced dead at the scene: a 23-year-old man inside his apartment and a 31-year-old man outside. The younger victim was a documented gang member, and the older victim was a parolee, Silva said.

A relative of the younger victim lived in a nearby apartment. A search of his apartment turned up an assault rifle; investigators were trying to determine if it had been used during the homicides, Silva said. As of Monday evening, no arrests had been made.

The victims' identities have yet to be released.

Gunshots are commonplace in the area, said Vyancan Lopez, 17. "I've been living out here for 12 years," she said. "It's nothing. You get used to it." She just moved into a new apartment in the same complex. It has already been struck by gunfire.

Her roommate, Maria Martinez, 23, isn't accustomed to the gunshots. "I don't think I can get used to this," Martinez said.

Monday also saw the death of a 23-year-old man who had been shot outside a bar over the weekend.

The unidentified victim had been on life support after he was shot in the parking lot in the 8100 block of North West Lane at 12:35 a.m. Sunday, according to Stockton police.

It was unknown if there was a fight inside the bar before the shooting, but it is possible the shooting was preceded by a disturbance in the parking lot, Silva said.

Authorities on Monday also identified victims of two Saturday homicides.

Dennis Martin Jr., 38, was the man shot and killed in the Wilson Way parking lot outside McDonald's about 12:25 p.m. Saturday, according to the San Joaquin County Coroner's Office.

At 10:49 p.m. Saturday, an unknown assailant shot a man and a woman parked in a car near Mist Trail and Paintbrush drives in Weston Ranch, according to police. The man survived the attack. The woman, 27-year-old Denise Lemberg, died the next day.

There were four people in the car at the time of the attack, police said.

According to reports, the two couples had returned from a date when the attack took place.

Neighbors said they have had problems along the street in the past. It runs alongside a park and appears to be a magnet for drug dealers, they said.

One neighbor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation, said he heard at least eight gunshots, fired in rapid succession from what sounded like a handgun.

His 9-year-old daughter thought it was fireworks, he said.

From his property, he could see the woman as a man tried to stanch her bleeding with a T-shirt. "She didn't deserve to be shot like that," the neighbor said. "It's like the Wild West out here."